


helena

by wrongstation



Category: One Tree Hill
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:46:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25015678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrongstation/pseuds/wrongstation
Summary: life will never be the same without keith.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	helena

"It was a beautiful service."

Lucas Scott repeats those words automatically. For hours. Through every handshake, every well-meaning hug, an empty sentiment that maybe once held truth but now just keeps him from breaking down.

There's still dirt between his fingers. He'd been the first to toss the ceremonial dirt onto the casket, but his mind had been on anything but symbolism. All he could see was a casket in a hole in the ground, a hole where the only father who mattered was laying cold. Lifeless. Dirt lingers in every handshake, and now the symbolism is hitting him. Now he gets it. He's dirty because he's allowed to live in a world where Keith Scott doesn't.

He remembers thinking that Dan had no right to take the second handful. Even that Dan shouldn't have been there at all. The symbolism of the dirt between his "father"'s fingers was far more literal in his jaded, grief-stricken mind.

Finally, only he and his mom remain. They stand for what feels like hours at the hole in the ground that's no longer a hole. It's covered. The earth has been replaced as though nothing ever marred it, as though weapons hadn't ripped through its very core to bury things that had no place being dead. Deceptively friendly and covered in warm colored flowers, he buys into its denial. His mom takes his hand and he should be comforting her. He should, but all he can do is turn to her and say, "It was a beautiful service."

"Come home, baby," she says to him, like she should be the one taking care of him. "Let's go home." If Keith were here, it would be different. If anyone else were in the ground, Keith would be wrapping his arms around them both. Leading them away. Leading them home.

There was no home anymore. There was no point.

"Have Nathan take you home, ma," he tells her, pulling himself out of his melancholy enough to kiss her head, an arm around her back as he leads her up to where the well-wishers have gathered. He recognizes their faces, knows the sadness and the pity laced with grief, but he's not ready. He can't go. He can't leave Keith alone in the ground.

His brother doesn't need words to understand what Lucas is wordlessly saying when he approaches the crowd with Karen. Nathan takes his place. Takes Karen under his wing, and Lucas is struck by how much is brother reminds him of his uncle.

The walk back down to the gravesite is long and slow, lonely, just as it should be. He'd never been the nephew or son he should have been. Too consumed in basketball, in girls, in the stupid feud with the one person who deserved his hate the least. His guilt is biting into him like clothes that don't fit, a vise. His tie is the enemy and he rips it off at the foot of a random grave, sinking to his knees as an unexpected sob rips through him. Katherine Highland watches him cry, her wilted flowers looking just as pitiful as he feels.

Everything that seemed to matter in the moments leading up to Keith's death don't seem like anything worth his attention. Nothing matters. Not the stupid games or stupid Peyton or stupid Dan. He should have been with his family. His real family. His new father.

It slaps him in the face, the way he'd rejected the Scott name. Rejected it because of Dan and Nathan, never thinking about how Keith was the real Scott all along. The real man. How many years had Lucas rejected everything about the very man who raised him and taught him everything he knew?

It comes in waves. The guilt. The depression. The anger. Somehow he crawls down to Keith's grave, to the mound of dirt, to the only place he'll ever be able to see his almost-father again.

"I'm so sorry Uncle Keith," he cries, the ugly kind of crying that no one ever wants to witness in another human being. He feels like his guts are pouring out of his nose, leaking from his ears, spilling from his mouth. He's being enviscerated by grief and it's nothing less than what he deserves. "I'm so sorry if I ever made you think I didn't love you. Or that I was ashamed of you. God. Why... I don't... you shouldn't be there. I should be there. How could you do that? How could you run in there like a hero? You had no business being in there! You promised my mom, Keith, you promised..."

The words start to make no sense, every desperate thought and emotion pouring from his mouth just as thick as the mucus that clogged his nose and the tears that streamed from his eyes.

Broken. Unworthy of the Scott name, but finally realizing just how much it meant. How much it would always mean.

He cries at Keith's grave for hours before Nathan comes to find him and take him home. But it really was a lovely service.


End file.
